


A Speck Of Color

by nhasablog



Category: Rent - Larson
Genre: F/M, Illnesses, Sickfic, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-25
Updated: 2019-01-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 01:46:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17540333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nhasablog/pseuds/nhasablog
Summary: Roger visits Mimi in the hospital. Fortunately she’s only there for a common cold this time, but yet another hospital visit is the last thing they need.





	A Speck Of Color

**Author's Note:**

> I'm gonna delete my tumblr, so I'm posting a bunch of fics people have requested that never ended up here. I hope you like this! Feel free to unsubscribe to escape the email notifs lmao (but come back in, like, a week because ily)

Roger was tired of these bleak hospital halls. They were way too draining. You’d think a place where the sick and the dying had to spend weeks upon weeks before either returning to a gray world or passing away would be more colorful, more cheerful, but it wasn’t, and Roger could barely stand the sight of it anymore.

The chair in the waiting room was uncomfortable, but he’d sat in it enough times to barely notice it anymore. He wasn’t the only one there, but everyone was quiet except for the woman in the reception who occasionally would hum to herself or accidentally knock something over in her search for something else. Roger couldn’t hear her pen, but he knew she was writing. Knew the movements enough to be able to tell.

Hospitals were always too still. Too still until they suddenly weren’t still at all. Roger was almost waiting for the chaos to arrive in the form of a doctor giving the wrong sort of news. Roger was always waiting for it.

The same doctor who had taken care of him last time he’d been here came walking toward him, and he held up his hands once Roger flew out of his chair and almost knocked it over in the process. “She’s fine.”

“Are you sure?” Roger had this thing where he didn’t entirely trust doctors anymore.

“It’s only a common cold, but combined with, well, everything, it’s making her feel worse than she should. She should be fine in just a few days, but we’re keeping her here for the night just in case.”

“Can I see her?”

“Follow me.”

Roger and the doctor - Roger thought he’d said his name was Brendan several months ago, and he felt only a little bad when he realized he wasn’t sure - walked side by side through the narrow hallway until they reached the room where they were keeping Mimi. Neither of them had stayed in it before, but it looked identical to the other countless ones they’d had.

Mimi smiled when she saw him. “Hey you.”

Roger felt his own lips curl into what he assumed was a relieved expression. “Hey.”  
  
“I’ll leave you,” Brendan or whatever said, and was gone before Roger could even reply.

He grabbed one of the chairs they kept lined against the wall and pushed it so that he could sit next to Mimi’s bed. “How’re you feeling?”

“Do you want an honest answer or a lie?”

“An honest answer, please.”

“I feel like death.” She shot him that sad smile of hers that meant she wanted to be fine for Roger’s sake, but didn’t know how to. “But it’s only a cold. I’m sure they told you that.”

“They did.”

“But I still feel like death.”

Roger didn’t reply, because he knew they both knew why she was feeling like this, and saying it out loud would make it more real. Instead he reached for her hand, squeezing it just a little bit until she squeezed back. She seemed exhausted. Beat. Her usual glow was missing and Roger would turn the world upside down to find it.

Only he didn’t know how.

“The nurses laughed when they realized it’s nothing too serious,” Mimi said after a while, her gaze stuck on the wall behind Roger. “They’re probably so used to death that something like this made their day. They’re sweet like that.”

“Did you laugh?”

“I was only relieved. But hey, Patty’s back.”

Roger’s eyebrows met his hairline. “She is?”

Mimi’s smile had slightly more life to it now. “She is! Her little one is old enough for daycare now.”

“She wasted no time in coming back to work, I see.”

“She adores being a nurse and helping people.”

“I like her.”

Mimi kissed his hand, her lips lingering on his skin. “I know you do. She asked about you.”

“I’m gonna have to find her before I leave.”

They grew silent again, and it was both comfortable and loaded with so many unsaid things, but Roger reckoned it could all wait until later. Hospitals were awful enough without unnecessarily grave conversations.

“I told Mark we’re here, and he said he might swing by later. I didn’t tell anyone else, and I don’t think he will unless someone asks.”

Mimi nodded. They were here so often that they’d stopped telling people about it each time unless it turned out to be more serious. Everyone had their own lives to attend to and didn’t need to spend hours in a waiting room. They both agreed on that. The only exception to this rule was that they always told each other.

Roger ran his thumb over Mimi’s hand, using his other hand to caress her arm in a way that caused goosebumps to prickle over her dark skin. She shivered, a laugh escaping her lips when she caught Roger’s grin. “That feels good.”

“Oh, I know.”

His hand crept upwards past her elbow, and she jerked away involuntarily. “It tickles.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t stop.”

And so Roger continued, letting his fingertips draw invisible patterns over Mimi’s skin and making her shiver and let out that occasional laugh that he adored so much. He knew that he would get a bigger reaction if he just moved a little more to the side to get her underarms, or moved upward to touch her neck, but he knew Mimi didn’t need to be thrown into hysterics right now. This hospital room didn’t need echoing laughter to push away the misery. It just needed a smile and a giggle to make it more bearable.

Roger stopped before she asked him to, because he knew how your body could ache when you were sick, and combine that with- well, you get the point. He didn’t want Mimi to hurt even more just so that he could hear her laugh.

“I wish I could go home,” Mimi said when he eventually stood, knowing the doctor would come kick him out any second.

He wanted to lean down and kiss her so desperately, but he knew she’d push him away so that he wouldn’t catch her cold, so he merely sent her a tight lipped smile and said, “You’ll be home tomorrow. I’ll swing by first thing in the morning.”

“You better.”

Roger laughed, relief washing over him as she grinned playfully at him. “I promise. Get some rest, Mimi.”

“I promise to try.”

The halls were still too bleak when he walked through them, and the world was way too gray when he finally stepped back into it, but in his mind there was a tiny speck of color that only appeared when he’d been close to Mimi. He couldn’t wait for it to turn into a rainbow when Mimi returned to him. He could barely stand this monochrome existence.


End file.
